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Mainframe Modernization: Maximizing The Potential Of A Mixed Environment |
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 Today’s customers expect 24/7/365 service, and systems must be able to support STP and fast product development cycles. Old legacy systems that run on mainframes cannot keep up with these demands, and financial institutions are well aware that it will be increasingly difficult to compete when their core systems are not up to scratch. In addition, most commercial software is being developed in modern languages for a server environment, not for mainframes.
These issues are driving financial institutions to sunset their legacy systems and modernize their mainframes with the objective of lowering operating costs, gaining greater flexibility, accelerating new product development and creating competitive advantage. Modular, componentized approaches are a flexible and cost-effective way to accomplish this goal. Moreover, service-oriented architecture, Web services and EAI software are making it much easier for platforms to work well together.
To this end, firms no longer have to think in terms of being a Unix shop, a Linux shop, or a mainframe shop. They can operate a more complex environment without having a much greater support burden.
Ultimately skill set, scalability and cost are the major factors financial institutions will consider when they choose a solution. Here, six major players in mainframe modernization share their thoughts and talk about their offerings, all of which have had a significant impact on the financial services industry in the US and around the world.
Sherree DeCovny, Contributing Editor
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Duet Brings New Ease-of-Use to Enterprise Applications |
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 Microsoft and SAP have answered the prayers of millions of business
end users who wanted to leverage the power of SAP business applications
through the intuitive interface of their Microsoft desktop.
Duet, a jointly-developed solution, enables business users to access
SAP applications like time and expense management, budgeting, travel
management, as well as business intelligence applications directly via
Microsoft Office.
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Keeping Up with the Ever Increasing Demands of Data Processing |
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  StreamBase Systems (www.streambase.com), a leader in the fast-growing
complex event processing (CEP) market, has pioneered a remarkable new
approach to processing and analyzing real-time streaming data. Founded
by data management experts who have been driving industry innovation
for decades and backed by top-tier investor firms, StreamBase has
developed a new class of stream processing software. Global
organizations are witnessing its high performance coupled with its
intuitive graphical development environment that eliminates the need
for costly, inflexible custom-coding.
We recently spoke with Barry Morris, Chairman and CEO of StreamBase
Systems, Inc. about high-performance CEP and the trends that are
driving its adoption in financial markets.
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Smart Strategies for Competing in a Global Economy |
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 Regardless of their niche, line of business, or historical market sweet-spots, today all financial services businesses must have a strong grasp of the changing dynamics of the global economy - and their role within it. Whether they’re a boutique Boston investment management fi rm or an international commercial bank with branches in 80 countries, the ultimate context for their products, clients, and competition is unavoidably global.
As global vice president of Financial Services for CDC Software, Jason Rushforth deals daily with both the global nature of his business and the global challenges of his client companies, which include fi rms such as Mellon Asset Management, Calamos Investments, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, and Farm Credit Services of America. CDC Software offers the Pivotal CRM suite of client relationship management systems for fi nancial services firms, which includes discrete tailored solutions for capital markets, mutual fund wholesaling, institutional asset management, wealth management, and commercial banking. We talked to Mr. Rushforth about the challenges of the global economy and how CRM can play a role in helping financial services firms compete.
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Firm’s “Timing Is Everything” Approach Leads to Spin-Off |
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 Garrett Capital’s philosophy is that when it comes to financial
markets, timing is everything. The investment advisory firm licenses
active management strategies of third-party managers for use in its
clients’ accounts. The challenge is finding the right third-party
managers.
As a proponent of active management, Garrett Capital adheres to the
strategy that indicators, typically generated by mathematical models,
can identify trends or changes in trends, and as a result can reduce
risk and improve returns. To better identify active managers who
successfully employed this strategy, in 1999 Garrett Capital began
tracking timing signals, or the buy and sell recommendations of
different third parties. What eventually resulted was TimerTrac, a
spin-off company that is now completely separate from Garrett Capital,
that tracks active signals for customers ranging from individual
investors, to advisors to academics.
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Stanford Federal Credit Union – Case Study |
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 Institution Profile
Tempering high-growth opportunities with
the necessary realities of doing business efficiently is helping
balance Stanford Federal Credit Union’s portfolio and technology
decisions.
While their banking counterparts are forced to fight
battles on many different fronts and spend energy and capital on
building with bricks and mortar, Stanford Federal Credit Union (SFCU)
has taken a different route to success. The foundation of its present
expansion is a solid understanding of what members want, coupled with
the ability to implement new products quickly and efficiently.
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Software Boosts Wall Street Use of IM and Group Chat |
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  IM and group chat have several distinct advantages over the
telephone and e-mail. They don’t interrupt the way a ringing phone
does, and messages don’t pile up as they do in e-mail inboxes.
“Instant messaging is a lot faster than e-mailing, and it allows you to
see who is online and who isn’t at any given time, which e-mail
doesn’t. The telephone, on the other hand, can disrupt your workflow,”
explained Graham Lawlor, program manager of instant messaging at
Deutsche Bank, and chairman of the Financial Services Instant Messaging
Association (FIMA), an industry group.
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Avanade: Taking Financial Advisors to the Next Level |
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 Formed through an alliance between Accenture and Microsoft seven years ago, the global technology integrator now has more than 2,500 clients in more than 30 countries. Its early success can be attributed to a methodology called Avanade Connected Architecture, or ACA.NET, a set of common tools and services that clients can draw from as they build on or integrate Microsoft technologies. Now Avanade has introduced a new tool that can serve financial advisors by tapping into a financial services institution’s underutilized computing power. Its suite is called Portfolio Studio and using Avanade’s Grid Architecture as a foundation, facilitates financial advisors’ ability to perform comprehensive quantitative analyses.
We speak with George Lipsker, Avanade’s market development director for financial services in North America, and ask him to walk us through Avanade’s key offerings for the financial services market.
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SAP: Flexible and Ready for Change |
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 In an industry undergoing rapid transformation, the worldwide market leader in enterprise software has been reshaping its product offerings and adjusting its market focus to position it for the next generation of software. Last year the leader in CRM, ERP, and supply chain software caused a stir in the CRM market when it introduced CRM on Demand. SAP also joined with Microsoft in releasing Duet, a solution that increases efficiency for business users by utilizing a familiar Microsoft desktop tool to access enterprise level data and manage corporate processes. We asked SAP’s Jon Bobalik, Director of IBU Insurance (Americas), to discuss SAP product offerings in this evolving environment.
We have been watching the release of Duet, the joint SAP/ Microsoft product that brings together business productivity and enterprise application. How does Duet fit into SAP product offerings?
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Former Pacific Exchange Migrates to Improve Processing Power |
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 Two years ago, the Pacific Exchange realized that it was beginning to run out of processing power in its data center. It had a contract for 85 MIPS on an outsourced mainframe for its clearing and billing system, and the fast-growing options business was pretty close to using up all that capacity.
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HP: A Holistic Approach to Security |
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 As the number and severity of security incidents have risen over the past few years, so has the importance of security management. Add to that regulatory pressures that are forcing firms to demonstrate operational risk controls and report the effectiveness and weaknesses of their control frameworks, and financial firms are facing security challenges like never before.
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Real-Time Data and Updates for Active Investors Without the Cost |
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 Brokerage firms that are looking for ways to attract and retain their most profitable active traders can now offer them real-time market data and dynamic updates to their portfolios and watch lists at a modest cost, while reinforcing their own brand through private labeling the service from Stockgroup.
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